Monday, August 25, 2014

Last day at Arches

Today was get-in-free day at all National Parks. We thought we might have to fight for space in our last couple of hikes in Arches, but we got there early enough to miss most of the crowds. We had seen most of the sites on our previous two visits, but there were a few short ones we wanted to complete.

The first was to Sand Dune Arch. This was fun because the walk was short, cool and took us through a slot.

Owl (we think) nest in one of the many holes in the rock. We know this is a nesting site because of the white poop in front.

From the Sand Dune the trail led across open grassland to Broken Arch.

We didn't get on the trail until almost ten but saw some wildlife which has proven very difficult on our previous hikes.

Mule deer

This arch isn't really broken but was called that because it appeared broken from a distance.

Next stop was North Window

and

South Window.

Unnamed arches

Turret Arch

The windows trailhead started from the upper parking lot.

From the lower parking lot was a trail on the other side of the road that went to Double Arches. I chose this view for the perfect shade of blue above the top arch.

After lunch we headed down Scenic Byway 291 for an Indian Rock Art tour. This means petroglyphs which are motifs that are pecked, ground, incised, abraded, or scratched on the rock surface, and pictographs which are paintings or drawing in one or more colors using mineral pigments and plant dyes on the rock surface. We followed Long Canyon which features art dating from 5300 BC to 1880 AD.

This is a favorite rock climbing area before the rock art begins.

Pictographs

Long Canyon was carved out by the Colorado River. Below is the river road, the vehicle road and the railroad.

Jug Handle Arch. We were unable to find the art here, but enjoyed the arch.

The white marks are the three-toed tracks of an Allosaurus.

To the left of these tracks are the petroglyphs which look like cut-out dolls.

We enjoyed a lot of art on this tour, but by the time we reached the end of the Canyon we were hot and tired. We decided to save the three sites on the other side of the river for tomorrow.